The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a signature piece of legislation from President Donald Trump in 2017, has been a windfall for big business. It was supposed to be a job-creation and investment engine, too. But top drugmakers channeled most of their savings to investors, not R&D or price cuts.

In the present study, we examined the scope of NIH support for published research associated with the 210 NMEs approved by the FDA from 20102016. Specifically, we used PubMed to identify publications related to each of these NMEs as well as the 151 known molecular targets for these drugs. We then used the NIH RePORTER database to identify publications that cited NIH funding, the core projects (i.e., grants) that supported this research, and the fiscal-year costs of those projects. We specifically focused on the 84 first-in-class drugs approved from 20102016, identifying publications, projects, and project costs leading to the first approval of these innovative therapeutics.

We identified NIH-funded research associated with every one of the 210 NMEs approved from 20102016, most of which was focused on the biological targets rather than on the drugs themselves. This research comprises over 2 million publications and was supported by more than 200,000 fiscal years of federal (primarily NIH) funding totaling more than $100 billion. These results demonstrate the scale of basic research involved in bringing a novel product to market and the magnitude of public sector support for this research.

I think we should go back to the times when they weren't allowed to directly advertise medications to the consumer, and should also limit marketing to doctors as well. It has only been a boon to drug company profits and not the health of the country.